The Talon
by Exoducy
Summary: A brief interlude on the subject of killing dragons, and Paarthurnax in particular.


The old man's hands were wrinkled; veins of tireless rises and falls like the mountains of Skyrim. The old man's fingers were more bone than skin, but more skin and muscles than bone, when they worked the pages of ancient books dexterously.

The old man's nails were cracked from the cold, whistling through rifts in the house made of stone, as he sat by the little boy in a bed and touched his head sweetly.  
"Thank you for the ointment, my boy," the old man said, smiling; teeth like toenails of a giant.  
The boy couldn't reply. Barely half of his tongue was left after an accident - or maybe it had been a game with other children in a city whose name he didn't remember anymore. He recalled only the sparks of sunlight in the sawmill which suddenly was upon his face. Something had pushed him towards the sharp and blood red pain, and then darkness.

Under the shaky caress of the old man the boy smiled crookedly, but not as one might expect an ordinary boy to smile. A thin but prominent scar ran across the medial of his face, dividing the lame and the moving side. The old man's hands inspired him to secretly practice every day. In front of the looking glass he perfected smiling. The boy had heard that in difficult times one could not give enough happiness, and there was only him left that would face the old man in the silent evenings.

Not until the boy was sleeping did the old man tuck his stiff, rheumatized fingers into the warmth of his sleeve.

The boy dreamed of untold stories, of armor fit for a High King, his lost dog Tjoerv and that loud bark, of the Jarl's magnificent horse that _should belong to me when I'm grown_, and of dragons.

When the boy woke, he was no longer a boy, but a man wishing he hadn't dreamt of dragons. Wishing that the old hands hadn't clasped that book, that evening; "They will return one day, boy."  
"It is written."

The boy who had become a man rose from the snow and donned his steel-horned helmet, his simple sword, and his chestpiece. The only trace of him was a pressed form in the snow which turned to a small spot, and then disappeared; many times he turned his head while ascending, lingering his eyes to find that shape. There was no sturdy horse to carry him up, and no exquisite armor. Even so, many waited for other great things of him. He had been told this, and would live up to it.

But it was not by the old man that had expected bravery, he reminisced, arriving to find an empty peak.

Under him, her beauty was wide and never-ending; the dark pines, the patches of autumn lands. Curvy rivers and soft waterfalls that adorned sharp stone. He stood watching the damsel in distress, but when the shapes of the mountains rose higher before him, and where they finally merged with the sky, he saw only the old man's hands, tucking him, flipping the pages, opening handles to heavy and mighty doors; never expecting.  
Revenge flushed through the man, red-hot and smoldering.

The dragon was already perched atop the ancient wall when he wheeled around and darted. A short exchange of shouts sent him over the edge, liberating the voice he never had, a full-grown and secret voice, more powerful than even magic or love.  
He had been warned to not let this particular _monster _live, and it met every slash of his blade many times, and many times more.  
They danced together until the man realized it was no longer fighting in his tight grasp.  
It was bowing his head, slumped and convulsing.

White and dark brown, the blood running in the snow drew him down and in for a moment. He lowered his sword, slowly moving towards the dragon. Hypnotized by the pattern, whispering; "Dahmaan mahfaeraak, dahmaan, dahmaan."

The old man's hands had given him courage where no said words ever touched him, even as they were cold in death; reluctantly the boy had neared the corpse of the old man. Later he violently refused to part his small fingers with the frozen crooks; screaming and beating everything soft and living in his way that tried to bring him back and away from sorrow, as if he wasn't already totally confined in consuming anger; forced to live but not particularly wanted by anyone. Not a single soul would receive his smile.  
That night, he had perfected it for the first and last time.

Kneeling at the dragon, the man braced himself for the rush of space that would pierce him with strength and vitality. For every _damned abomination _killed he grew and he ran further; leaving the bed far behind, leaving the old man's ointments and repressing what he had felt that night when an old voice told him about the prophecy of the Dragonborn, and how The Voice was "Not ordinary, but better than magic, my boy."

It had been the night before the Great War and the boy had wanted nothing more than a Voice.

Blood was running lines in the white, and patterns seized him much like the day when magic disappeared, torches were not lighted and books no longer read. He followed red trails through the evaporation and smell of iron as they were twisting around the enormous carrion of his enemy.  
He arrived at the claws; chapped, broken. Where there would be cuticles a thousand barbs protruded from the very smooth and thin dragon skin; of course it would be thin he thought, this dragon had been different.  
Old.

He waited a long time. The rush never came, and he learned the feeling of an unmoving universe. For a moment, there was nothing at all, and the dragon's talons turned to hands. They lay lax and stripped.  
When the golden rush came sunset on scales was shimmering in the emerald green and soft pink of the northern lights, but the man didn't perceive it.

He swayed as time tore through him and violently hauled away pieces placed by old hands; "You must run now, boy." "Don't come back for me." "Don't."

The old dragon's talons were opened as the little boy dropped his sword and helmet and chestpiece and climbed onto the soft palms, and the old man's hands cupped the boy's head when he returned.  
Cradling a man which could not cry were the old man's hands; "Boy, you will be anything you dream of tonight". Skyrim was veiled in the first dawn; serene, calm, unmoved.


End file.
